MIERS : Crossroads of freedom (fülszöveg)
The American Revolution was an eight-year struggle for independence. The war could have been lost on many occasions as the tide of battle ebbed and flowed across the Colonies. Several of these critical moments occurred in New Jersey, and so New Jersey's role in the conflict has a hairbreadth character to which only the historian who is also a skilled storyteller can do justice.
Earl Schenck Miers recaptures the glory of that age when the American colonies reached toward military victory. His book covers the entire complex campaign from Fort Washington to Trenton and Princeton, Morristown to Monmouth, ending with the battle of Springfield and the defeat of the British in the last serious military operation in New Jersey. It relates the siege of Trenton and Valley Forge, the arrest of Howe's advance on Philadelphia, the defense of the forts on the Delaware, and the bitter winter at Morristown.
His opening chapter describes the movements of the British troops under Howe, the strategic planning for the patriot defense of the Hudson River forts under the command of Nathanael Greene, and the invasion of New Jersey. Subsequent chapters, illustrated with battle maps, show how the Continental Army was driven in flight across New Jersey, how Washington regrouped his forces and, supported by the civilian population, recovered the initiative in the Trenton-Princeton campaign and turned the tide to victory.
Mr. Miers makes skillful use of the diary of Joseph Plumb Martin, a young man who remained in the Continental Army throughout the war and recorded events from the viewpoint of the ordinary citizen-soldier. Contrasted with his account are the records and correspondence of generals and politicians as well as what the newspapers had to say and what was going on outside the battle zones.
Here, too, is the human side of the campaign; war-profiteering Jerseymen trying to make fortunes from trading with the British, the conflicting passions dividing families, neighbors, friends, statesmen, and those who fought its battles, the outbreak of disease, the ragged, ill-trained, undisciplined militia, the innumerable hardships, the devastating odds, and the defeats. The author portrays the working of the minds of the commanders and other major personalities – John Witherspoon, Hendrik Fisher, Surgeon Waldo, the redoubtable Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, the enigmatic Charles Lee, the romantic Muhlenberg, Anthony Wayne, the exuberant Morgan – the people who made it happen.
Finally, all of these separate elements are fused into a New Jersey chronicle which made the colony-state the "cockpit of the Revolution" and the gateway to freedom.
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| KATALÓGUS | TARTALOM |
